Impacting lives through Cause Branding - The MTN Factor

(A GNA Feature by Samuel Dowuona)
Accra, Sept. 4, GNA - The Gynaecology Department of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital recently took delivery of the refurbished second floor of its Maternity Block, thanks to MTN.
The completely transformed floor, re-commissioned on Friday, August 14, 2009, now has 11 delivery rooms, a theatre, a recovery ward with three beds, doctors' rest room, an orderly changing room, a store, an autoclave and wash up area.
The equipment installed include 11 delivery beds, a theatre table with full accessories, full combination theatre light, radiant heater, a full set of anaesthetic machine, cabinets, drip stands and several other obstetrics and gynaecology equipment. That sounds like luxury for the babies and mothers who will use that floor.
Professor Enyonam Kwawukume, Director of the Gynaecology Department, told the Ghana News Agency that the Maternity Block used to have only seven delivery wards, each with two beds to accommodate more than one expectant mother at a time. But with 11, they can now assign one delivery ward each to expectant mothers at a time. "This will allow husbands to be by their wives during labour and have the opportunity to cut the umbilical cord between mother and baby," Prof. Kwawukume said happily.
Cutting the umbilical cord is something that Ghanaian men have been denied for lack of privacy in delivery wards, but thanks to MTN Ghana Foundation, it is now possible at Korle-bu. Prof. Kwawukume, however, said the most important benefit was that the new theatre would save lives because expectant mothers scheduled for the theatre used to wait for up to eight hours because there was only one theatre on the first floor. Obviously, lives were sometimes lost during waiting time.
But with the new theatre on the second floor, waiting time has been reduced drastically to about two hours or less.
Saving lives is what this Flagship Health Project of the MTN Foundation is all about. On the light side, all the babies born on the transformed floor should be branded "MTN babies" and be given some life-changing MTN package.
But, even if MTN does not do anything special for the newborns, transforming the second floor of the Korle-Bu Maternity Block into "five star" status to the tune of GH¢650,000 (¢6.5 billion) is, by all standards, more than enough gesture, to show that MTN is committed to making meaningful social interventions. The refurbishing of the second floor of the Maternity Block of Korle-Bu, branded the Health Flagship Project, is just one of two huge corporate social responsibility flagship projects of the MTN Ghana Foundation started last year.
There is also the Education Flagship Project, dubbed MTN Learning Centres, under which 10 ICT centres would be established across the 10 regions of the country at a whopping GH¢929,580. Nana Adjei, Coordinator of the Education Flagship Project, said each centre would have 20 computers with internet connectivity for students to use for free, and two other computers for managers, plus other accessories like a photocopier, scanner and printer. MTN Foundation is also funding the construction of the edifices for the centres.
The foundation is working together with the UNDP and the government of Ghana on these projects and Nana Adjei said suitable sites had already been located in all the 10 regions, based on some criteria - nearness to MTN cell site and to a cluster of schools - for students to easily access the centre for their e-learning lessons. Adverts would soon be placed in the newspapers to invite tenders from potential contractors for the project, Nana Adjei said. Those are some of the best, if not the best, examples of cause branding that Ghana has witnessed in recent years. Cause Branding, essentially, is branding corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Since the launch of MTN Ghana Foundation (MGF) in November, 2007, the company has taken CSR to such levels that the term "corporate social responsibility" has become synonymous with the MTN brand.
MTN has made such a strong statement in CSR that Cause Branding is also becoming proverbial with the MTN brand, just as the challenge of network quality is.
The MTN Ghana Foundation is an independent umbrella organisation within MTN Ghana, set up to manage the corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of the company. The philosophy of MTN is closely linked with the principles of sustainable development, which argue that enterprises should be obliged to make decisions based not only on financial or economic factors, but also on the social, environmental and other consequences of their activities. (www.mtn.com.gh). Like its counterparts in all the other 21 operations of MTN in Africa and the Middle East, the MTN Ghana Foundation is an autonomous legal entity, with the Corporate Service Executive of MTN Ghana, Ms Mawuena Adjo Dumor, as its Executive Director, working with a board that has the responsibility of evaluating and approving of projects; and a board of trustees, whose role is strictly advisory. The focus of the foundation, across all 21 operations, is four-fold: health, education, economic empowerment and the development of music, arts and culture.
Each foundation has at its di sposal a minimum of one per cent of profit before tax of the local company (MTN Ghana) to manage and disburse for approved CSR projects. For instance, judging from MTN's operating profit of GH¢293 million in 2008, one per cent of that would be GH¢2.93 million, which is just about how much the company spent on CSR that year.
Beyond the Health Flagship Project, MTN Foundation also spent GH¢124,129 to construct an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the Marie Louis Children's Hospital in Accra.
On education, the Foundation spent some GH¢108,607 on the MTN Scholarships Scheme, another branded cause; GH¢97,214 for a teaching and learning aid project, branded Academy Educational Development; and some GH¢18,000 to support National Best Teacher Awards. Speaking of scholarship, so far the Scancom Ghana Limited, local holding company of MTN, has sponsored 1,000 pupils and students through basic, second cycle to university level since 2000. But within the two years that MTN has been in Ghana it has spent a total of GH¢150,865.45 on scholarships for some 370 pupils and students, out of which 294 are still on the scheme.
"There are some beneficiaries who we knew as masters and misters and are now doctors," Scheme Coordinator, Frazier Malcolm, said. Some of the beneficiaries who are now professionals and are contributing their quota to national development are Dr. Angela Frempong Durowaa, Madina Clinic; Dr. Isaac Akandi, Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital; Dr. Herzuah Andrew, Central Regional Hospital; Dr. Jimah Bashiru, Cape Coast Regional Hospital; Mr Kwame Amoako Appiah, Telecoms Engineer, Huawei/MTN; Isaac Adu, UBA; MrDaniel Oppong Nyinah, MTN Ghana (Finance Division), and Mr Fawaz Inusah, MTN Ghana (Finance Division). Currently, MTN has decided to phase out the scholarship scheme and rather commit its support to some financial aid offices of some of the country's universities, who will in turn extend assistance to needy, but brilliant students in public and private universities. MTN will also partner with some established educational scholarship funds to support pupils at the basic level.
The company also spent GH¢90,000 on the second edition of its 21-day Yello Care project, during which both MTN Ghana senior and junior staff, led by the Chief Executive, Brett Goschen, went into selected communities and institutions across the country to provide voluntary services in the areas of health care, sanitation and beautification of those communities.
Yello Care activities for June 2009 included lend a hand activity, malaria sensitisation, painting of zebra crossing and road safety programmes, teaching, career guidance and motivational talks, tree planting, football clinics and pitch enhancement, cleanup exercises, blood donations by MTN staff, public health screening and health walks. Indeed, when the chips were down, the MTN Ghana Yello Care Team emerged tops among 21 Yello Care teams across all MTN operations in Africa and the Middle East.
MTN is probably the most criticised brand in Ghana, particular for network quality, but there is no doubt that when it comes to quality in CSR, the MTN brand stands out.
Even though the professed focus is health and education, MTN continues to make indelible footprints in sports and entertainment branding in this country. Some of the big brands currently associated with MTN in sports are league champions Accra Hearts of Oak and the internationally acclaimed MTN/Metro TV Sport Academy. In music MTN stands out as the headline sponsor of Ghana Music Awards for several years running. Others include Stars of the Future, Project Fame West Africa, Music Music, Sound Splash, Bands Alive and Samini. Recently MTN broke new grounds in the performing arts, sponsoring live stage plays by Uncle Ebo Whyte's Roverman Productions. We can also talk of Miss Malaika Beauty pageant.
That MTN's Chief Marketing Officer, George Andah, was adjudged Best Marketing Practitioner of the Year 2008 at the recent CIMG Awards, speaks volumes about the corporate brand, its cause branding and other successful brands it has helped to build in the country. When it comes to CSR and MTN, one can go on and on, because there are a lot of good stories to tell.